Welcome to the Warm Colors Apiary website. WCA produces and sells honey, pure beeswax candles, and products using honey and beeswax. We provide pollination services to local orchards and farms. Beekeepers can purchase queens and honeybees, equipment and bee supplies, and attend workshops in the Warm Colors bee yards. In other words, most activities involving honeybees happen at our apiary.
Warm Colors Apiary was founded in 2000 to produce regional honey from flowers in western Massachusetts. Located on eighty acres of woodland, open fields, and wetlands, the land provides a variety and abundance of nectar & pollen plants that bloom from early spring to late fall. Having a location with flowering plants blooming successively throughout the warm months makes our apiary ideal for honey production and the raising of honeybees.
Our mission is to develop, test and use beekeeping methods that improve the health of the honeybee. Through selective breeding, we endeavor to manage a sustainable apiary system that minimizes the use of harmful chemicals and employ the natural defenses and heritable behaviors shown to improve the honeybees mite tolerance and resistance to disease.
Our goals include raising honeybees capable of surviving the rigors of a New England winter and having the individual & social immunities to withstand the stresses associated with honeybee decline. Our work focuses on using the best available breeding stock, providing natural sources of forage and nutrition, and the early detection and prevention of disease and pests. Proactive management that reduces stress and the resulting problems, before they become too serious to correct, is our long-range goal.
Package & Nuc Update: Dates for Picking up your bees.
Package bees will be available for pick up on April 27-28 (Nucs will not be available on these dates), 9AM-4PM. If you ordered Russian packages they will be available May 18 – 19th. Please confirm when you are available to pickup. If not scheduled your bees may not be on site when you arrive.
Nucs will be distributed by appointment only. We are on the road much of late April and May so please confirm you can pick up before arriving, or risk no one being home. The first available Nucs will be here for May 5th. Warm Colors Nucs will be ready June 1st & 8th.
We have sold out of package bees and Nucs for the 2019 season.
Queens will be available in May.
PLEASE NOTE THESE DATES: We will be closed on the these days to participate in the following events:
Saturday June 1st – Participating in 10th Annual Bee Fest. Second Congregational Church, Greenfield, MA. Free and open to everyone as a celebration of Lorenzo Langstroth – the father of modern beekeeping. 9AM – 12 noon. Actor impersonator Mark Hoffman will portray Lorenzo Langstroth as he was in the 1830s. Awarding of the Bee Space – pollinator garden awards presented by Representative Natalie Blais.
Saturday June 15th – Presenting at the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association Field Day. UMASS Agricultural Center, Amherst, MA. 8:30AM – 4PM. Experienced beekeepers present demonstrations and workshops on best practices for managing honey bees. Over 30 workshop sessions scheduled. Free and open to all beekeepers.
September 8, – 12th – Attending Apimondia, Montreal, Canada.
Workshop & Event dates now posted.
Beekeeping can start young. Dan shows a future beekeeper the queen bee.
News:
- Dan Conlon interview on “Beekeeping Today”with Kim Flottum: Dan Conlon: It’s All About The Russians (Russian honey bees, that is)
- Warm Colors Apiary has received the 2018 “Local Hero Award” (farmer of the year) from CISA (Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture) and a Congressional Award recognizing Warm Colors Apiary for our outstanding and invaluable service to the community from Congressman James McGovern. Bonita & I appreciate these honors from people and organizations we respect and support. CISA and Congressman McGovern promote nutrition, farms, and access to fresh foods for all Massachusetts residents. We share their philosophy that all people deserve fresh, nutritious food. We thank CISA and Congressman McGovern for their ongoing commitment to make local food available to all citizens.
Queen test yard #1 – 2018
For the Beekeepers
Warm Colors stocks beekeeping equipment for pickup at our South Deerfield store. We are distributors for Mann Lake Inc. and Starhart Hollow woodenware. We also carry electric fencing supplies from Wellscroft Fences. Although we stock most commonly needed bee equipment & supplies, we encourage customers to plan ahead and order directly from manufacturers. Today’s bee supply model is free shipping (added to the cost, of course) and unless you order a large numbers of items there is little savings buying from a local distributor. We do offer advice and suggestions for proper use of equipment – that is something the national suppliers cannot do. Our prices are competitive.
Knowledge + Management = healthy bees.